---
title: "Swiss Pairings and Standings (Buchholz) | Local Mingle"
description: "Run a Swiss-system event: pair each round by score with no rematches, handle byes and colours, enter results, and rank players with Buchholz tie-breaks."
url: https://localmingle.sbs/swiss-pairing/
---

# Swiss pairing and standings

Many players, a few rounds, nobody knocked out. Pair each round by score without rematches, enter the results, and watch the standings sort themselves out, tie-breaks and all.

Swiss event

Ready to pair round 1

9 players, 4 rounds planned. Round one pairs the top half of the list against the bottom half.

### Standings

| # | Player | Points | Buch. | SB | Wins | Rounds |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Priya Nair | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Tom Okoye | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Lena Fischer | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Marco Bianchi | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Sara Lindqvist | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Yusuf Demir | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Hana Sato | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Owen Price | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1 | Chloe Martin | **0** | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |

## How Swiss pairings work

In a Swiss event nobody is knocked out: everyone plays every round, and after each one players on the same score meet each other, so winners play winners and the leaders sort themselves out quickly. Nobody meets the same opponent twice. It suits chess and board-game clubs, quiz leagues, card nights and table tennis evenings with more players than time.

## Rounds, byes and colours

A common rule of thumb is log₂ of the number of players, rounded up: 4 rounds for 9 to 16 players, 5 for 17 to 32. With an odd number, the lowest-ranked player who has not had a bye sits out and scores the bye points. Round one pairs the top half of the list against the bottom half, so list stronger players first if you know them. With colours on, whoever has had fewer whites gets white.

## Tie-breaks

Players level on points are separated by Buchholz, the sum of their opponents' scores, then Sonneborn-Berger, which weights each opponent's score by the points you took from them, then wins. For a player's own tie-breaks a bye counts as a game against an opponent on their own score, capped at half the number of rounds, as in FIDE's 2026 regulations. Your event's rules may set another order.

## Sources

- FIDE Handbook, [07. Play-Off and Tie-Break Regulations](https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/TieBreakRegulations032026), effective 1 March 2026: Buchholz (8.1), Sonneborn-Berger (9.1), number of wins (7.1) and unplayed rounds (16).

## Questions

**What if a rematch cannot be avoided?**

With more rounds than the field allows, the tool still pairs the round and warns you how many games are rematches.

**Can a player drop out?**

Not as such in this version. Enter a forfeit as a win for the player who turned up; to leave someone out of later rounds, start a new event without them.

**Is my event saved?**

Yes, in this browser's local storage: the players, every pairing and every result, so a reload or a flat battery loses nothing.